


Emeritus Heroes and Their Retired Swords

by PaintingMusic



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Actual interactions between the 7, Angst, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Canon-Typical Violence, Dealing With Trauma, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Realistic slower development, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25911928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintingMusic/pseuds/PaintingMusic
Summary: Seven half-bloods shall answer the call-They did that.Traipsed across the world and back, too. Some of them lost their memory, some of them suffered through actual Tartarus, and all of them nearly died at more than one point to fulfill the prophetical lines.In the end, however, the Prophecy of Seven was completed.Half-bloods and immortals alike are now thrust into post-war existence, but with too many loose ends and unexplained events to number, what exactly does that look like?Percy Jackson, for instance, has absolutely no clue (as usual). But nothing feels quite resolved, and maybe someone should have thought to warn or prepare them all for post-war life.
Relationships: Annabeth & Frank & Hazel & Jason & Leo & Percy & Piper, Annabeth Chase & Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson & Grover Underwood
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Emeritus - having retired, but allowed to retain a title as an honor

_Seven half-bloods shall answer the call._

They did that.

Traipsed across the world and back, too. Some of them lost their memory, some of them suffered through _actual_ Tartarus, and all of them nearly died at more than one point to fulfill the prophetical lines.

_To storm or fire the world must fall._

The world did…and so fell the fire in consequence.

_An oath to keep with a final breath,_

_And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death._

They won the war, they killed Gaea, they combined Roman and Greek forces as easily as blending two different colors of play-dough into one gigantic, uni-colorful sphere.

Foes became allies… the prophecy was fulfilled… the world came to be at peace.

And the half-bloods, belonging in various ways to that sphere—they had won, no doubt about it. Heroes forged in blood, courage, and war.

But what happens to those heroes? The ones that suddenly find themselves in the middle of all that glorious, newfound _peace_ …


	2. Percy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emeritus - having retired, but allowed to retain a title as an honor
> 
> For those who happened to already read the "first chapter," and may be a bit confused, I ended up rewriting the original almost entirely and have had added a prologue as well. Please feel free to read the new version (highly recommended for understanding future installments)!

* * *

**E** ven before the beach decided to attack him, Percy knew something was wrong.

It began the day prior, on a sweltering August 14th that everyone present would have collectively labeled as unnerving. Percy, if he could pick one word to describe the day, would have gone with “sticky.” As in, sweat, sticking his camp t-shirt in uncomfortable positions to his skin like it was a second layer—only in neon-orange.

“Tired yet?” he grinned broadly, flipping his sword like a no. 2 pencil before directing its point at her neck.

Piper had approached him about an hour ago, weapon in hand, and an “I’m not going to take no for an answer” protest plastered on her face. Despite having gone head-to-head only two weeks ago with an evil dirt mother who was Hades-bent on destroying the world, she was eager to work on her sparring. One might even have called her _dedicated_ to practicing her swordplay, based on her continued habit of spending hours doing so every day.

He had been ankle-deep in the lake, about to submerge himself fully, because, again, it was really warm, but he obliged. Sometimes you just needed to whack things. Percy could appreciate that.

“Nope,” she denied, in reply to the taunt. Her forehead and shoulders glistened with sweat, and wayward tendrils of hair had become pasted in squiggly lines across her neck and cheeks like a kindergarten cut-n-paste project. Her eyes caught his glance, and she snapped her fingers. “Hey, it’s not sweat,” she protested crossly. “Let’s go again.”

Percy knew she had no problem with getting her hands dirty. Just had a thing about sweat ( _Careful, your Aphrodite is showing_ , he thought with a smirk). Unusual for Piper, but no more abnormal than the pounding waves of heat stretching across the camp, a place that rarely saw extreme temperatures. Maybe it was just the day.

He spread his hands. “If you want.”

In unintended unison, they repositioned themselves in preparation for another match, the distant chatter of voices and bursts of laughter ringing in the air like an echo. For how incredibly rare the heatwave was, there was still a general presence of peace that had settled over Camp Half-Blood. Like everyone knew, all at once, that they could rest and enjoy their summer—at least for a little while.

As Percy planted his feet in a particular stance, his mind, as it often did, drifted to Annabeth who he knew was hunched over a textbook somewhere quiet. When he had left her earlier, she was so tightly pressed against the desk, hovering over the pages, that Percy felt it was necessary to warn her about splinters. She wasn’t grateful for his advice.

Instead, she had nudged his hands off the paragraph she was inspecting and grumbled about how “this isn’t a raw wood desk, it’s been sanded, rounded, and polished” and “don’t you know anything about desk manufacturing?”

Nope, apparently, he did not.

Piper cleared her throat, drawing him back to the present; he somehow managed to yank his head out of Annabeth world which was actually pretty difficult, considering. He should be commemorated or something. “Ready?”

She indicated her assent with a sharp nod, and they appraised one another for half a second before Piper sprang forward with a twist of her elbow, aiming to jab right above his navel. Percy’s conscious and subconscious alike narrowed in on his battle reflexes, all attention presently focused on the sparring match. He nonchalantly blocked her attack, and glaring in response, Piper slashed upwards to the left for a second offensive strike.

He knocked it aside once more, each sword scraping the other with a screeching _clang_. Bouncing lightly from the ball of one foot to the other, Percy decided to enter into offense himself. He ducked another failed swipe (this one aimed at disarming Riptide) and angled the aforementioned sword across her shoulders. Up toward the chin, he rested the blade under her jaw.

Short and sweet.

“Gods,” she muttered, releasing a tense grip on her own weapon and scowling. Her foot stamped in irritation, reminding Percy of an enraged bull, scraping the dust and sending clouds of dirt in swirls around their ankles. He decided it would be wise not to disclose the part about the bull in conversation. “Will you _stop_?”

Percy laughed, stepping back and dropping Riptide. “Winning?” He relaxed his own arm and swung the sword lazily against the side of his thigh. If she was admitting defeat and complaining, they were definitely done for the day—not that _he_ was complaining about that. Hades, it was hot. “We can try again, if you want. I know you’re good at this,” he tacked on after a moment of contemplation. He knew she would say no, but he figured Piper could use the boost of confidence. “It’s just an adjustment-fighting-slump…thing.”

Okay, yes. He didn’t have a way with words (hey, it was a challenge to even decipher most of them) and that was more Annabeth’s domain, anyway. Hopefully, Piper wouldn’t take offense at his poor choice of words.

The friend in question thankfully did _not_ shoot twin daggers in his direction—she sighed, her braid sliding from shoulder to back as she rolled her neck and arms methodically. Percy sort of remembered her doing this whenever she was especially tense. Her expression was guarded, revealing a sliver of grudging defeat and little else, but it was the stiffness and slight slump of her spine that spoke to a deeper well of exhaustion and irritation she wasn’t as willing to share. Whether the irritation was with herself or with him, he wasn’t sure.

Probably both, if he was entirely honest with himself; Percy was used to having people irritated at him.

“It’s cool, Percy, we can stop. Thanks.”

A glorious, unexpected breeze hummed into the field. It spoke with the leaves in murmured, rustling tones, and lifted the hem of his t-shirt, grazing the skin and wrapping around his stomach like a cool, gentle belt. Piper looked just as grateful for the wind as he did.

“No problem.” He nodded, already beginning to twist on his heel and pivot toward the cabins. “I’m going to hit the showers, then. Should we—”

Piper waved away his words in the air as if the breeze could carry them away for her. “I’ve got the equipment, see you at lunch.”

Shooting her a grateful look, he started his trek toward the ‘U’ of residential buildings, mind quickly wandering to random places as it usually tended to do. If someone was somehow able to track his thoughts or measure it on one of those charts, it probably would end up so tangled and convoluted, he would be sent to some mental facility for simply being all over the place.

Second on the list of things to ponder was Piper’s problem (after number one, which was realizing how many things he had forgotten to do that morning). Over the last two weeks, she had been noticeably struggling with fighting, from simple technique to spacing out in the middle of sparring. Percy was no stranger to completely ignoring what he was supposed to be doing and losing track of time in his thoughts, but when he was fighting? Never.

That would have meant death a hundred times over.

She didn’t want to talk about it, clearly. Cool, fine with him; he wasn’t too worried, and she and Jason seemed to be doing fine, so Piper was probably discussing that with him. And, besides, the selfish part of him was admittedly more focused on enjoying the opportunity to do nothing important. After almost a year of his life spent frantically bursting from one danger to the next, these last two weeks felt as though the sky had been lifted clean off of his shoulders.

It was his first break in ages—for everyone, in fact.

Percy had taken about fifteen steps away from the field, his focus completely on a different planet, when he sensed a sharp object pressing into his back. Precisely an inch above the spot where his mortal soul, his proverbial Achilles heel, used to be tied.

It was as if a thread still remained there. It yanked his focus and his body back.

Percy stiffened, his limbs suddenly feeling like rubber, and spun to face his opponent, jabbing forward without a second thought or consideration of strategy. His brain must have short-circuited then. His vision began to tunnel, and a rising sense of panic cloaked him in darkness as the force of a thousand hammers began to bang inside his skull, inside his chest.

He felt like he was rattling around inside his own body, vibrating, jumping out of his skin. Tunnel-vision and fuzzy waves overtook his senses, and he couldn’t have located up from down in that moment. He knew Riptide was moving, stabbing in irrational patterns, but he couldn’t tell exactly toward what.

His chest—gods, it was so tight, he wondered which giant had slunk from the shadows of Tartarus to squash his ribs.

Racing from doubt to doubt, his mind refused to decipher who his enemy was. It sprinted from old failures and regrets to thoughts of “am I dying? I have to be _dying_.”

He felt like it.

What monster was he fighting? He should have found a way to save Zoe somehow— Zeus and Hades, he was dying—how did the monster get inside the camp? Should’ve intervened when Frank told him not to, could have saved—why hadn’t he sensed it sooner? –Leo! The giant was crushing his lungs, he could feel bones stabbing—why was he dying now? When a monster was attacking camp—

Around and around and around, he couldn’t have deciphered whether it had been 15 minutes or 15 seconds.

But something eventually shot him out of the whirlwind.

Percy’s heart was thundering with the hooves of fifty galloping horses, and his brain felt as though someone had stuffed it to the brim with cotton, but something had begun to pierce through it. It tunneled to his ears.

“Percy. _Percy_ —"

The horses slowed to a trot, his vision and coherency widened. He found himself blinking in confusion, a foot from Piper, whose eyes were very wide and very concerned. His lungs were still having a really, really hard time working, but the panic that had sunk into his core was dissipating.

That was when he noticed his sword, angled diagonally at the rapidly pulsing skin of her throat.

“Oh my gods.”

Piper drifted her arm forward, cautiously and tentatively resting a hand on his forearm. “Hey, it’s okay. Take deep breaths, match them with mine.” She sucked in an exaggerated breath, waving for him to follow. He wondered how long she had been talking, how long she had been fighting him—and not for practice.

Unintentionally, he stumbled back, hands shaking (shaking?). “Pi,” Percy choked out, definitely _not_ meaning 3.14.

“Hey, it’s okay. I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have snuck up on you.” 

Percy realized he had stopped rattling enough for a new emotion to surface: a tidal wave of guilt that began to flood his senses. It filled him with a heavy, cold presence, physically enveloping his body…though that feeling was partly due to how heavy his limbs were.

Gods of Olympus he was exhausted, and he was 90 percent sure a 20-pound weighted blanket had been draped over his shoulders at some point.

He felt like he could sleep for 18 hours straight.

Piper, with all the force of a butterfly for how gently she lowered the arm clutching Riptide in a death grip, nodded as she searched his face for any signs of panic. “Are you okay? I’m really, really sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he breathed, still feeling like his throat was tight, but straightening and running his other hand across his face, wiping away whatever in Hades that was. “Overreacted.”

Understatement of the century.

He had felt like he was actually dying (and he would know) …but for all of the theatrics, and despite feeling like he hadn’t seen a pillow for weeks, Percy knew he was fine. No injuries, no racing heart or crushed ribs. Just undeniably guilty of trying to maim his friend.

Immediately, he swung his head from left to right as a thought crept into his mind—he almost sunk to the ground in relief when he glanced at the expanse of dirt around them, no other living creature bustling about in sight. The last thing he need was whispers and stares to haunt his steps. Not when he was simply attempting to remedy whatever he had just done. Or simply figure out why it had happened in the first place.

Percy jerked his attention back to Piper. “Can we not, uh, you know?” His face bloomed with red, doubling the heat that was pooling in waves across his head from the sun.

“Tell Annabeth,” Piper finished.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, yeah, just for now and stuff. I mean, it’s not a big deal, and I know she’s more stressed than usual—” His eyes widened. “Oh _,_ wait _,_ NO, not that almost stabbing you wasn’t a big deal—”

What an idiot he’d been…he wasn’t sure he _could_ even muster up the courage to admit the whole thing to his girlfriend. She would develop that furrow in between her eyebrows, like she already knew what a colossal failure he had been.

Piper swiped hair behind her ears, though they still stuck out like little kids had used glue to mat them in spikes. “Percy, it’s okay. Honestly. It’s just,” she huffed in frustration, like she was trying really hard not to say something, but couldn’t ignore it, “maybe we should talk about it. When you’re ready.”

He didn’t like that option.

“I know it wasn’t a super normal reaction,” he defended, swallowing the memory of racing thoughts, tunneled vision, and bones rattling around in his skin like maracas. 

“No, it wasn’t,” she agreed, and set her sword down, crossing her arms over her chest. “Percy, I don’t mean—look, you probably reacted that way because of a panic attack, and I’m just guessing because I can’t get inside your mind for you, but I really think this is something you shouldn’t ignore.”

Piper sounded secure in what she was telling him, but she looked pretty uncomfortable, like she had crossed some huge unspoken line. Sure, they weren’t super close, but Percy felt a twinge of guilt, in the midst of all the confusion and defensiveness, for her lack of comfortability. Maybe if he had made more of an effort to be her friend sooner, this wouldn’t be a problem—he shoved it aside. Not the time.

“A panic attack,” he repeated.

“Maybe, I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised, Percy, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Piper had moved from uncomfortable to sympathetic, which didn’t settle well in his stomach; he suddenly felt a rise of surging nausea. “It…happens.”

One thing Percy could appreciate about the daughter of Aphrodite? She was blunt and usually honest if she deemed it necessary. It reminded him of Annabeth which made him swiftly decide that he did not want to talk about it—what he wanted was to _sleep_ for gods know why.

Piper, to her credit, didn’t push the issue. Maybe she sensed the overwhelming desire to cut off all discussion oozing from every stiff muscle and clench of his jaw.

“I know you’re sorry.” She smiled, then dropped it just as quickly as it had appeared, like someone had flicked a light switch on and off in one motion. “Go take a shower, eat. If you feel up to it…let me know.”

What exactly he’d be up for was unspoken, and though he was fairly confident in any future declinations, nodded in confirmation, the guilt still lapping in tauntingly, soothing waves against his conscience. She left, marching in steady, calculated strides. As if she could take a wrong misstep and somehow trigger an offense or another round of panic.

As for him, Percy didn’t feel so steady. He felt wobbly, like a lifeboat drifting very far off course, and overburdened by weighted limbs and fuzzy brain cells. It was different than the experience of holding up the weight of the sky. Both were enormously, ineffably heavy, but both were _different_ from the other and he didn’t know how to explain or understand it.

So he didn’t. He would think about it later.

For now? Percy was going to take a long, long nap and try to push thinking far away.

Maybe the guilt would dispel along with it.

* * *

**H** e had slept for 13 and a half hours.

Not a record, he was an advocate for extended naps and sleeping in at every possible opportunity, after all, but it remained a significant contender for the title. It had been as heavy of a sleep as his limbs had felt beforehand; no dreams, no whispers of doubts or threats or warnings entailing details of upcoming dangers.

Just…sleeping.

It ultimately sent Annabeth into a spiral of panic—Hades, her face when he finally woke up—but he managed to slip out of explanation and, eventually, to his usual source of calm. Percy scooped a pebble out of the sand, the pressing weight centered in his palm; it was oddly comforting.

Much like the sound of the water.

Sand wove to the ground in trickles between the cracks of his fingers as he hefted and analyzed the stone’s mass much in the way that he would test a new sword. The shape sort of reminded him of Hephaestus’s head. A lump here, a weird edge there…

Eventually, he tossed it (the rock, not a godly head) skimming across the surface of the water. It would have made a poor weapon unless someone planned on bludgeoning it against a monster’s skull violently, which he didn’t.

Speaking of violent weapons… Percy jerked his attention to his sword and circled it around and around in his fingers, arcing in a metal path over and under in one large loop. Sort of like a bronze bicycle wheel spinning at top speed during a 5k. Why was he making a circle in the air with a deadly weapon? Why _not_? Besides, there wasn’t a soul or harpy around; if someone happened to be taking a 2:46 a.m. stroll, heading in the opposite direction toward him, it probably wasn’t friendly and deserved to be whirled into a yellow dust storm.

Yeah, okay, he felt a little bad thinking that way, even about monster killing, but seriously, no one but an evil-doer would be on this beach right now. _That’s logical, although a bit of an assumption_ , the logical part of his brain admitted (the part that was, though fostered by Annabeth, undeniably very, very small). _If you encounter a monster, circling a sword won’t be effective._

That was mostly true. There was a chance it could work (Percy was suddenly quite interested in applying that as unexpected swordplay), but the most effective way to kill a monster was to slash or stab. Obviously. To sink the Celestial Bronze into his enemy and watch it bloom into dust—not pixie dust, that was gold, right? –scattering to the wind or breeze or whatever else that obliged.

A twig snapped. Of course, as he was thinking of monsters—

Percy froze, Riptide whirring to a standstill as it unconsciously wavered this way and that, the blade tip sniffing out an intruder. His heart pounded. His body, as though connected to an IV drip, filled with a rush of adrenaline from head to toe. His fingers grew a bit shaky.

Okay, really shaky.

_No_ , he told himself firmly, _we are not doing this again._

Shifting left, he slunk around a rock, barely missing a scrape from a stone with his ankle. The rock in question jutted out of the sand gleefully, as if its sole purpose in life was to trip innocent beach-goers. He felt jittery—though not adrenaline jittery. His mind was flashing a million different pieces of advice, scenarios, and warnings on a neon billboard, and he couldn’t think straight. For all of the jokes he had entertained himself with earlier, he hadn’t really expected anyone to be wandering the beach. No one _should_ be on the beach.

Then, something rustled in the sand by his foot.

And Percy knew, with perfect clarity of mind, that he was going to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This spun out of my head and found its way onto paper, so I thought I'd test the waters and post the result.  
> In all frankness, I feel as though this chapter dives into an extreme very quickly, although my ultimate plan is to explore these themes (post-BoO, trauma, school, Roman/Greek, etc.) at a slower pace in general, hopefully dialing back just a bit in upcoming chapters. I am curious to hear your thoughts on this though, maybe others have a differing opinion!
> 
> Thank you for reading, feedback (negative or positive) is incredibly appreciated; it helps us feedback-starved writers continue... :)
> 
> Extra Note: This is, in fact, my first story on this website, so if anyone notices any errors, improvements, or can offer insights as I learn how to navigate writing here, please let me know!  
> And, on a side note, this probably won't cover ToA at all: I'm mostly looking to pick up loose ends.


End file.
